Was the Bush administration right all along? Could these indeed be the very same WMDs that intelligence agencies from around the world claimed were in Husseins possession which he then transferred over to Syria?

The earliest account of Hussein having hidden his WMDs in Syria came in January of 2004. Nizar Nayouf, an award-winning Syrian journalist who was granted political asylum in France, said in a letter to Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf not only that he knew Iraqs WMDs were being hidden inside Syria, but that he could pinpoint precisely where they were being kept. According to Nayoufs witness, described as a senior source inside Syrian military intelligence he had known for two years, Iraqs WMDs were in tunnels dug under the town of al-Baida near the city of Hama in northern Syria, in the village of Tal Snan, north of the town of Salamija, and in the city of Sjinsjar on the Syrian border with the Lebanon, south of the city of Homs. Nayouf claimed that the transfer of Iraqi WMDs to Syria was organized by the commanders of Husseins Iraqi Republican Guard with the help of General Dhu al-Himma Shalish and Assef Shawkat, Syrian President Bashar al-Assads cousin and brother-in-law, respectively.

There were pictures of every truck in Iraq heading into Syria, so yes, he sent them weapons. But Syria has been manufacturing their own, as evidenced by their chemical purchases. Recently, they lost a chemical weapon’s plant to the rebels. It appeared to be undamaged. So, doubtless, the rebels are making their own.

Syria is probably still making them, but the ones being used very possibly did come from Saddam, since the places where they would have been stored were areas that were attacked by the “rebels,” aka, al Qaeda. Only a couple of months ago, it was even public knowledge, based on press reports, that Syria’s old poison gas stocks had been seized, and in fact Syria had then sent out its army to try to get them back. I don’t know how much they were able to recapture.

The face-saving maneuver worked out by Putin (having Syria turn over its poison gas stocks to international supervision) is probably the best option. Syria probably doesn’t have that much of its own, but this would then make it possible to go after the rebels with their aged (but still effective) stolen stock.

If this can be proven to be true obama will have to reject Putin’s idea. Unless Putin agrees not to show the world. And I think he will. He doesn’t not want to give credit to Bush no more than obama does.

But it seems Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin still pines for Obama’s predecessor. At his annual meeting with academics, think-tankers, and journalists, Putin barely mentioned Obama but “repeatedly expressed fondness for his friend ‘George,’ “ says Cliff Kupchan, a Russia analyst at the Eurasia Group consultancy

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